Hey, ya'll. How has it been? I know that I haven't updated this since way back in 2010, but this is the new chapter for my Ba Sing Sei arc fiction. I make no money from this, and I don't own the characters that exist in the show. Only the ones that I created. Enjoy. R/R

PREVIOUSLY: Lynn took a deep breath, "We better get on with the tour before the others start coming back from work. It'll be easier for you to get to know the people here if you know where you're going."

Sokka couldn't believe how blasé she was being about this; she was a fire bender! In Ba Sing Sei, of all the places! "What the fuck," he said, half angry half breathless, "Do you think is going to happen? You're a FIRE bender in the middle of the last city in the world without fire benders in it! If- if people found out they would-"

"Kill us." Lynn said, her voice deadly calm, and Sokka could see her weighing her options, "They would break into this place and they would tear through everything and everyone; fire bender or no, and we would all die. That is," here her voice dropped to a whisper, "If I let you live long enough to tell someone."

She advanced upon Sokka, her hands glowing with her fire, "B-but," Sokka stuttered, regretting that he had given up his weapons upon arrival, "You owe me! I helped you save this Lee person's life!"

Lynn nodded, but her face was cold, "And I spared your life. I haven't killed you yet, but you should know; if I, at any time, think that you would endanger the children that I protect. . ."

Here, she snapped her fingers together, extinguishing the flame. "I will end you."

Sokka gulped, sweat trickling down his spine, "So long as you can prove to me that you are not agents of the fire lord, I don't care what powers you have!"

Lynn retreated to a safe distance, nodding, "You should be able to tell as soon as you start spending time with us; too many of us have been hurt by the fire nation to ever be agents of it."

Sokka nodded, rubbing his neck to have something to do with his hands. "I'm going to try to understand what it is that you do here. You just need you to know that this is hard for me; aside from what happened to my village, I've had to suffer through the crown prince of the Fire Nation chasing me and my family across the world in a bid to kill us."

Lynn smiled tightly, looking pained, "If you're talking about that kid, Zuko, then you have a couple of facts wrong. He was banished from the Fire Nation when he was younger than you are now. The scar on his face that his father gave him is proof of that. And he wasn't really bent on destroying you all; he just needed to Avatar to be able to go home without his father killing him."

Sokka just stood there, his mouth hanging open in disbelief, "What?" He screeched, "I didn't know that; why didn't anyone tell me!"

Lynn shook her head, "Most people don't know. They're just left to guess. Not a lot of people like to think about a father who can burn his son so severely and then banish him from the only home he's ever known." Lynn's voice turned brittle, "And then demands of him an impossible task."

Sokka actually shuddered to ask, "What task?"

Lynn gave him a 'duh' look, "Capturing the Avatar. It's the only way that Zuko would have been able to return to the Fire Nation without being attacked on sight. But that was way back; almost three years before the Avatar even woke up."

Sokka's Jaw dropped, "But then how did his dad know that the Aang was going to wake up; he'd been gone for over a hundred years!"

Lynn smiled sadly, "He didn't. Zuko's father meant it to be an impossible task. Zuko couldn't be killed, since Azula might have died before taking the thrown, but he didn't want to give Zuko a task that would allow for him to come home either. Not before he was needed, at least."

Sokka actually felt sick; such hate for his own son. . . Sokka couldn't understand it.

"Jeez," Sokka said, "No wonder he's psychotic."

Lynn started laughing, and Sokka looked at her questioningly, but she shook her head, motioning to the clock behind him.

"The others should be getting here soon; we need to get you to the arena so that we can all have that meet and greet and get back to our days."

Sokka cocked an eyebrow at her, but didn't argue, already intimidated by the ominous way that she said 'the others.'

The Arena that they stood in looked almost like an opera house, but instead of a stage for performances, they have a long line of podiums set up on a raised platform. "Wow," Sokka exclaimed, "This place is huge!" Sokka couldn't help but stare around him at the scenes painted on the various walls. "Is this the first rising on Sozin's comet?"

Lynn nodded, "That was drawn about fifty years ago by one of the few people to survive that day. Back then this place was used for refugees. A lot of them put their touch on the place, and, after it was abandoned because of disrepair, we kept it that way."

Sokka nodded, taking in the details of the picture; it was beautiful. "I wonder how whoever it was who made this could make it look so real. Alost like, if you looked away for just a second, it might just step out of the wall and burn you."

Lynn, though she hid it behind a fake yawn, laughed, glad that Sokka was finding something interesting besides his will to destroy the family that she had created for herself.

"It's all very good," She said, "I'll show you some of the others paintings later, once we've all met."

Sokka nodded and sat on the chair that Memphis had made for him, anxious about meeting an unknown number of people without a single weapon on him.

Memphis noticed his agitation, and correctly identified its source. "Don't worry," he said, "Not everyone in a warrior. Most of them are just farmers and the like."

Sokka grimaced, "Truth be told, it's farmers that I fear; never trust a man with a pitchfork at your back, my Gran-Gran used to say."

Memphis chuckled, but handed Sokka a small dagger, "If it makes you feel better, I've been told to protect you, so even in a pitchfork came your way, I'd block it."

And strangely, the thought of someone like Memphis protecting him did make Sokka feel more at ease.

Breathing deeply, Lynn blew into a pipe nearby, which gave a piercing screech and then a long, low call. "Now," Lynn said, breathless, "They all know what's up."

And kids started pouring in, different attire giving the room a filled up look, although only half of it was full so far.

Sokka clutched the dagger tightly, wishing that he had never come down the rabbit hole and landed in this mess.

Lynn allowed the room to fill more, and, by the time she stepped up to the nearest podium, there was no room for people still trying to come in. "Everyone in the front and middle," she shouted, "scoot up so that people have enough room to stand! I want everyone in this room before I count to five, and I want silence, you hear? Silence!"

All eyes were on her as everyone settled down as she counted slowly. Sokka was shocked to see how fast everyone got into place under her firm glare. By the time that she reached five, everyone had made room and were staring at her intently.

"Good," she said, "Now, I know that the last time I called you all here is when Lee was hurt, and I know that a lot of you got upset about it, but this meeting has a much lighter tone." She motioned to Sokka, his face heating as over a hundred eyes flicked to him. "This is Sokka of the water tribe. He is here because he believes that we are spies from the fire nation," Sokka felt rather ridiculous as everyone either snorted or outright laughed at this. Lynn hushed then with a hand, "Now, now," she said, "Be nice. It is understandable for him; he has been wronged by the Fire Notion, and he is suspicious of all Fire Benders because of it. I want all of you to give him every curtsey that you would afford someone you have known your whole life; make him feel at home here."

The crowd set to whispering, until finally, they agreed in one massive voice that they would.

Lynn nodded before moving on to various other topics of discussion, ranging from rations to medicine to war outfits. Sokka just sat back and watched the way that the people interacted with each other; people who were clearly earth benders were chatting with people who looked to be water tribesmen, pale clashed with tan, brown eyes and amber and blue all looked at each other, and no one was fighting, no one was commenting on anything about one race being superior to the other. Sokka didn't know whether to scream at them or to applaud them. Even though the earth and the water tribes were on the same side of the war, they still fought about everything from clothing to war strategies; this uninterrupted peace was astonishing.

Sokka didn't know how long it was that he watched them interact, but before he knew it, Lynn had dismissed them and she was walking over to him bearing a bowl of some kind.

"That went surprisingly well," she said, handing the bowl to Sokka, "at least no one threw anything at you for calling us all spies."

Sokka just stared at her, seeing eyes that were so like the Fire Prince's that is gave him chills.

"This place is odd; I've never seen people who were so different act like this." Sokka said in a breathy voice, still staring out at the now empty room, "Everyone was so . . . open. So calm about being near each other."

Lynn nodded, "They are the children that have been raised as refugees of one culture or another. They bond together to fight off the memories of destruction rather than blame someone who had no part in the birth of their pain. That's how we survive down here, away from the hate and prejudice." Here she paused, eyes shining, "It's my hope that when this war is over, they will remember what they learned here and take it into the outside world. That way, settling into peace between the nations will be that much smoother."

Sokka nodded, and though he thought that her plan was nothing more than a fool's dream, he hoped that it would work. He looked down at the bowl in his hand and asked, "What the heck is this for?"

Lynn laughed, "Dinner is soon; if you don't have a bowl, you don't get fed. I rationed you out a percentage of our stock; in about three weeks, we will pay back that silver you gave us for Lee's medicine."

Sokka started at the mention of his purpose here; to find out who this Lee guy really was. "Yeah," he said, standing up, "When do I get to meet this Lee person?"

Lynn's smiled disappeared, leaving her amber eyes hard, "You don't." And then she was gone, bounding off into the general direction of their kitchen.

Memphis sighed, "You just don't let go, do you?" he asked, shaking his head at Sokka as though he were a naughty child.

Sokka puffed out his chest, "Never! This guy has tried to kill the people that I love more often than my forgiving nature can stand! If he's here in Ba Sing Sei, that means that we aren't safe."

Memphis huffed at him, "This is Lee, not that guy. You may have had a past with the prince of the fire nation, but Lee hasn't done a damned thing to you. You have to accept that these two are not the same person. You've never even met Lee, so there is no way that you could have come to a valid conclusion that he is this Prince that keeps hunting you."

"I know, I know in my heart that this guy is the same one that has hunted us for the past year. The same guy that threatened to burn down my entire village to get to the Avatar, who held children hostage to make Aang go with him onto his psycho boat."

Memphis shrugged, "You just have to trust Lynn; she may look young, but she's wise for her years. She has a plan, I'm sure of it; that's why she let you live, that's why she has allowed you to come into our home when she would have destroyed any other threat to our safety."

Sokka said nothing, but walked with him into the kitchen, where tables were laid out in great rows; enough of them to seat half of Ba Sing Sei. "Whoa," Sokka said, eyeing the nearest one with awe, "How long did it take to make these? You could fit thirty people easy on one side!"

Memphis chuckled, "Yeah," he said, "It took was a long time to get all of these tables together. Most of them we had a swamp bender make."

Sokka cocked an eye, "Those inbreeding creeps? I didn't know that they came this far out of the swamps."

Memphis gave a great bear like laugh, "Naw, only the most isolated of them do that; the rest are just like the rest of us. Well," he conceded at Sokka's incredulous look, "maybe they are a bit eccentric, but most of are, in a way. There bending it top notch, though."

He motioned to an exquisite table nearby, where a group of older kids sat with their bowls full of some kind of delicious looking soup.

"How did they make the tables, though? I thought that they were water benders."

Memphis nodded, "They are. They use the water in the trees to move them into the position that they want; the most skilled can even put designs in them. That's what makes the swamp tribes so special. They can use their ability to make things that they sell at market. The coolest thing about their furniture is that they leave no tool marks, so it all has a smooth, perfect look about it."

Sokka admired all of the tables that they passed, even the ones that weren't made by the swamp benders. "They're all beautiful," he said, "They have such intricate carvings and staining that it's hard to believe that they sit in the middle of a crowded lunch hall, not some lord's manor."

Memphis nodded again, smiling at the envy in Sokka's voice, "Yeah, most of this stuff would go for thousands of gold on market, but since it was all gifts, we keep it instead of sell it. As Lynn said; we've had all of the benders here at one time or another. Everything that we use was made by bending; so it's all the best."

Sokka scoffed, "I doubt that a fire bender could make anything. All I've ever seen them do is destroy."

Memphis scowled down at him, "Angel made this place our home. She saved the lives of everyone that you see here, either through her own methods, or through the people that she had saved. Lynn has made this place flourish in Angel's absence; giving everyone something to call their own. Half of the things that we have here right now were made with the help of fire benders. In the kitchen right now, fire benders are cooking the food that we will be eating in minutes. Even though you don't see them, fire benders are everywhere in this city; cooking food, making clothes, saving lives. Don't look down on an entire race because you have been wronged by a handful"

Memphis walked away, fists clenched, leaving Sokka to wander over to a line that was forming near him. Even as Sokka put his bowl out to receive food, he saw the pale amber eyes of the person holding the ladle, and felt his insides curdle. Now, every time he placed an order, every time he bought clothes, he would think about the person who had made them, think about amber eyes and pale skin and raging fires.

That was the end of my new chapter; I really hope that you liked it! Read, and Review, if you please.